At New Game Plus. We were treated to a first look at Rewilders: The Lost Spring, a creature-collecting, open-world roguelite where you set out to bring a desolate world back to life. It was one of our top highlights from the event, and a few days later, I was able to find out more on the game from lead developer Javier Ramello.
Rewilders is currently running a playtest until the 27th of April, 2026, which you can join through their Steam page. Don’t forget to wishlist the game if you enjoyed the experience.
I’m Javier Ramello, cofounder and CEO of Herobeat Studios. On Rewilders, I’m involved across the creative and development side of the project, helping shape the game’s vision, its environmental message, and how all the systems come together, from exploration and combat to progression and worldbuilding.
Tell us about Rewilders and what the main aim of the game is.
Rewilders: The Lost Spring is an open-world action roguelite with creature collecting and metroidvania-style progression. At its heart, it’s a game about restoring broken ecosystems and bringing biodiversity back to a devastated world. We wanted to create something exciting and systems-driven but still carry the same emotional weight and ecological message people connected with in Endling.
The mix of creature collecting and land restoration really calls. How did you land on the mashup?
For us, the mashup came from the core fantasy of rewilding. We didn’t want restoration to feel passive or decorative; we wanted it to be something players actively do through play. As the world heals, the Hântu return, so creature collecting becomes part of the restoration loop rather than a separate feature. Those creatures are not just companions; they are tied to the ecosystem, to your build, and to the way you push deeper into the world.
I really love a game that features restoring a desolate land. But what benefits are gained when a player achieves this?
Restoration in Rewilders is both thematic and mechanical. Rewilding areas and reactivating springs bring life back to each biome, but it also feeds directly into progression. As the world heals, original inhabitants return, including Hântu you can collect and build around. On top of that, exploration rewards you with seeds, resources, Memory Fragments, and other materials that feed into permanent progression through your skyship base, where you can unlock buffs, upgrade your setup, and prepare for future runs. Also, every time you restore a location, the game difficulty gets increased, so new enemies start spawning.
The creatures are a wonderful addition, and I love their designs. When one is collected, what effect can they have on the gameplay?
The Hântu have a huge impact on gameplay. They bring active abilities, status effects, and passive bonuses, and different ones are stronger against different enemy types. That means they shape your combat style, your strategy, and even how approachable the difficulty feels. Some are built around protection or support, others around counters or utility, so collecting them is really about building your own synergy rather than just filling out a checklist. All in all, they are a replacement of the classic equipment system.
Abi’s sky base is a great addition, and it was always a good feeling jumping off it. Why a skybase, and what else can you do there?
We liked the idea of giving Abi a sanctuary above the ruined world, a place that feels safe, alive, and out of reach of mooglers. Mechanically, it also works really well as the game’s hub between descents. In the skyship base you can grow plants from seeds and resources gathered during your runs, unlock permanent buffs, evolve and feed your companions, plan your build, and generally prepare for the next trip back down into the Mainland.
The game also features abilities to unlock. I experienced the grapple hook in the demo, for instance. What other kinds of examples can you give of other abilities that will be available to unlock?
Traversal is a big part of the game’s identity, so the grapple hook is just one piece of a broader movement toolkit. There is also a glider and wall-running. More generally, we want traversal upgrades to do more than open gates; they should make movement feel freer, faster, and more expressive as you explore deeper into the world.
I’d love to know more about the decision to include combat in the game.
Combat was important because we wanted nature in Rewilders to feel active, not helpless. The game asks what happens when nature can fight back, so combat became part of that fantasy. It also let us combine Abi’s movement and attacks with the Hântu’s abilities in a way that creates a more dynamic action game. At the same time, we wanted combat to feel readable and approachable, which is why we worked a lot on things like enemy readability, optional lock-on, attack snapping, and Hântu helping soften the Souls-like learning curve without removing skill expression. In that regard, there is always a type of Hântu that can delete that specific enemy type that you hate the most because maybe you’re not very skilled at parrying or dodging.
Was there ever a version of the game where there was no combat?
Yes. The first prototype did not even have combat in the traditional sense. Instead, there was an invisible danger that damaged the player when entering a monoculture field. So the project definitely went through an earlier phase where threat and hostility existed, but combat had not yet become the system it is today.
Tell us more on the current playtest you are running right now.
The current public playtest runs from April 20 to April 27, 2026, on Steam. It includes the Grasslands and Wetlands biomes, plus multiple Hântu sets, including Grasslands, Jungle, Forest, Wetlands, Tundra, and Bacteroid Hântu. There are several improvements since the previous playtest, including stronger combat VFX, updated Hântu visual effects, out-of-bounds recovery, and performance improvements. Players can join through the Steam playtest section and share feedback through Discord and Steam.
The game is planned to launch into early access before a full release. How long do you plan for that to last, and when do you hope that the 1.0 release will happen?
Our target is to keep Rewilders in Early Access for approximately 28 weeks, from September 2026 to March 2027, giving us ample time to gather and respond to player feedback while expanding our planned content.
Rewilders is due to release in to early access later in 2026 on PC and consoles at a later date.
